Friday, March 23, 2012

Plums and things

A lovely post on my book has popped up on Fiona Kidman's website - along with a recipe for the little plum cakes which I baked once when Fiona and our mutual friend Maggie Rainey-Smith came for coffee. It's a Lois Daish recipe I've had for forever and I used just-picked plums off our burgeoning tree. And now Lois - alerted to it - wants a copy of Tenderness. Which fills me with joy (no plums in it though! only apricots).

Lois Daish was such a hero of mine when the children were small, her Listener recipes and advice on cooking a highlight of my week. Everything was simple, sensible, heart-warming, delicious, useful. I was devastated when the column stopped. One thing she said that has been gold with our family, is to let children cook and to happily clean up their mess until they get to love cooking, then gradually introduce the idea of cleaning up the mess. Her point being that too many kids get put off cooking seeing it as a chore.

It's worked brilliantly with mine. Both my sons have a night on the roster each and it's heaven. This week, middle son made Goan Prawn Curry and eldest made lasagne. How good is that? THANKS LOIS.

And thanks, too, to Fiona, who is a loyal friend of the first order. I love her post most because it is a record of that friendship, that cup of coffee with plum cakes, the way she buys my poetry book for herself and her friends and takes the time to visit the exhibition associated with it and to write about it for her website. THANKS FIONA.


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